Krdytkyu

I installed Blender from official Ubuntu repository but its version is always behind the version available from the official Blender website.

I'm aware that I can launch the program within the downloaded folder, but i want to replace the install version with a new version downloaded from the website?

It must be present in the unity launcher.

I'm also aware of the available PPA's that are available, however I just want to install Blender manually.

Thanks in advance

Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to download the current version of Blender from the website and replace the version installed from the Software Center with the one that you downloaded. I hope this is what you wanted.

1. Get Blender

Open your browser and go to http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/ . Download the appropriate version for your computer, 32-bit or 64-bit. If you don't know whether your computer is 32-bit or 64-bit, open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the following command :

uname -m

2. Extract Blender

Open Blender in your downloads folder, right-click on the file you downloaded and click "Extract Here". Once it finishes extracting, move the folder containing Blender to your Home Folder and rename it "blender" for ease of moving it later.

3. Uninstall the current version of Blender

Open a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T. Type this command set: sudo apt-get remove blender .

4. Copy the Blender files to where they need to go

Open a terminal. Type ls to see what files are in your home directory. There should be a folder called "blender". If there is, run the following command. If not, rename the folder and try again. If there's no folder at all, go back to step 2. Command:

sudo cp ~/blender /usr/lib/blender -r

This will copy all the files in the blender folder to /usr/lib/blender.

5. Verify that the files copied properly

Open the file browser by clicking the "Home Folder" icon in the launcher. Click "File System" on the left side, then open the folder usr, then lib blender. See if there's anything there. If there is, move on to the next step, if not, repeat the previous steps.

6. Open Blender

Open the Blender application. Right-click on the icon that appears in the launcher for the program, and click "Keep in Launcher".

Conclusion

Ta-Da! This is the best you can do to install the current version of Blender. You can redo these steps as many times as needed when a new version of Blender comes out. To remove everything in the blender folder so you can do these steps again, open a terminal and run these commands: sudo rm /usr/lib/blender -r . This is the best you can do, it keeps the blender files in a safe place, and gives a launcher with which to open it. You can't install the current version Blender other then this way in Ubuntu 11.10, however 12.04 will ship with Blender 2.61. For more information see this launchpad post: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/blender/+question/186716 and this one: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/blender/+bug/915248 . Hope that helps!

with this ppa.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cheleb/blender-svn

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install blender

PPA description

This PPA contains fresh (mostly daily) Blender SVN trunk builds. Please note that these are development builds and may contain bugs.



NOTE:

Cycles is now enabled in all Series - including Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.



The current build configuration is:

===================================

WITH_AUDASPACE ON

WITH_BLENDER ON

WITH_BUILDINFO ON

WITH_BUILTIN_GLEW ON

WITH_BULLET ON

WITH_CODEC_FFMPEG ON

WITH_CODEC_SNDFILE ON

WITH_CXX_GUARDEDALLOC OFF

WITH_CYCLES ON

WITH_CYCLES_CUDA_BINARIES OFF

WITH_CYCLES_TEST OFF

WITH_FFTW3 ON

WITH_GAMEENGINE ON

WITH_GHOST_DEBUG OFF

WITH_GHOST_SDL OFF

WITH_HEADLESS OFF

WITH_IK_ITASC ON

WITH_IMAGE_CINEON ON

WITH_IMAGE_DDS ON

WITH_IMAGE_FRAMESERVER ON

WITH_IMAGE_HDR ON

WITH_IMAGE_OPENEXR ON

WITH_IMAGE_OPENJPEG ON

WITH_IMAGE_REDCODE ON

WITH_IMAGE_TIFF ON

WITH_INPUT_NDOF ON

WITH_INSTALL_PORTABLE OFF

WITH_INTERNATIONAL ON

WITH_JACK ON

WITH_LIBMV ON

WITH_LZMA ON

WITH_LZO ON

WITH_MEM_JEMALLOC OFF

WITH_MOD_BOOLEAN ON

WITH_MOD_CLOTH_ELTOPO OFF

WITH_MOD_DECIMATE ON

WITH_MOD_FLUID ON

WITH_MOD_OCEANSIM ON

WITH_MOD_REMESH ON

WITH_MOD_SMOKE ON

WITH_OPENAL ON

WITH_OPENCOLLADA ON

WITH_OPENMP ON

WITH_PLAYER ON

WITH_PYTHON ON

WITH_PYTHON_INSTALL ON

WITH_PYTHON_MODULE OFF

WITH_PYTHON_SAFETY OFF

WITH_PYTHON_SECURITY OFF

WITH_RAYOPTIMIZATION ON

WITH_SDL ON

WITH_X11_XF86VMODE ON

WITH_X11_XINPUT ON

WITH_XDG_USER_DIRS OFF 

This answer deals with installing Blender from scratch and addressing concerns of installing to /usr/lib. It makes use of terminal commands and gui operations.

Install Blender

Untar (decrompress) the file and copy it to /opt/

tar -xjf blender-2.72b-linux-glibc211-x86_64.tar.bz2

sudo mkdir /opt/blender

sudo cp -r blender-2.72b-linux-glibc211-x86_64/* /opt/blender

Create a Unity Launcher

First, create the launcher file in gedit

gksudo gedit /usr/share/applications/blender.desktop

With that file open paste the following text into it and save it.

[Desktop Entry]

Name=Blender-2.7

Name[de]=Blender-2.7

Name[fr]=Blender-2.7

GenericName=3D modeller

GenericName[de]=3D Modellierer

GenericName[fr]=modeleur 3D

GenericName[ru]=Редактор 3D-моделей

Comment=Create and edit 3D models and animations

Comment[de]=Erstellen und Editieren von 3D Modellen und Animationen

Comment[fr]=Création et édition d'objets 3D et animations

Comment[ru]=Создание и редактирование трёхмерных моделей и анимаций

Exec=/opt/blender/blender %F

Icon=/opt/blender/icons/scalable/apps/blender.svg

Terminal=false

Type=Application

Categories=Graphics;3DGraphics;

StartupNotify=false

MimeType=application/x-blender;

Associate .blend files with Blender

Finally, to associate .blend files with Blender, right-click on a .blend file and click on Properties

In that window click on the Open With tab and select Blender

Now, when you double-click a .blend file it'll open the file Blender.

have you looked at this?

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Introduction/Installing_Blender/Linux (old dead link)

https://en.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Introduction/Installing_Blender/Linux (archived link)

Installing into /opt or /usr/local

You can also install Blender into /opt or /usr/local by moving the Blender directory into one of those locations. If you want to be able to run Blender from any directory you will also need to update your PATH variable. Consult your operating system documentation for the recommended method of setting your PATH.

You can purge the repo version from your system, and add the latest one you downloaded to /opt/ and update your $PATH

see How to add a directory to the PATH?

start blender, and it should appear in the launcher. Right-click the icon and select 'Keep in launcher'